Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
The scanning electron microscope (SEM) is a versatile examination and analysis tools for objects at high resolutions. High resolutions include sub-nanometer resolution. A SEM can operate in two basic modes: a low resolution (LR) mode and a high resolution (HR) mode. The HR mode is considered costly since HR mode exhibits a lengthy acquisition time and provides a smaller field of view in relation to the LR mode. On the other hand, the HR mode is advantageous in the chip inspection industry, as the ever-increasing demand for faster and more energy efficient microchips is shifting the industry towards smaller structures. This shift also pushes current SEM technology to its limit.
The SEM resolution and acquisition time have become dominant factors that constantly require improvement. Consequently, there is great interest in scanning large areas quickly, while achieving high resolution. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a method that breaks the immediate link between the inherent physical scanning resolution of the SEM and the resolution of the output image.